Best Sharpening Method

[Brian Holcombe]

I was 14/15 yes old when I made this;

[dan sherman]

Probably best NOT to touch one of the electrodes with your TONGUE!!

You will cook it, before you get close enough actually touch the electrode.

[george wilson]

Brian,did you grind that blade yourself? VERY IMPRESSIVE if you did. Very neat handle,too!!

Dan,NO DOUBT!!

[Patrick Chase]

I was 14/15 yes old when I made this;

Wow, nice knife for any age!

Back to today's topic, how does a JNat work on that? :-)

[Brian Holcombe]

Brian,did you grind that blade yourself? VERY IMPRESSIVE if you did. Very neat handle,too!!

Dan,NO DOUBT!!

Thanks George! Worked it from bar stock, grinding the profile and bevels, even built the grinder I used to work on it as I couldn't afford to buy one as a teenager. My father thought I had lost my mind when I asked him to order me a bar of BG-42 for knife making. I made a few of them out of various alloys, used ATS-34, D2 and I actually bought a bar of M2 but never used it.

Wow, nice knife for any age!

Back to today's topic, how does a JNat work on that? :-)

Thank you! Haven't tried it, but my guess it....not likely This stuff was absolutely brutal to finish, I remember how bad it was to work before heat treatment, then you have to re-polish from about 400 grit on after they return and that was hellish.

[Patrick Chase]

Thank you! Haven't tried it, but my guess it....not likely This stuff was absolutely brutal to finish, I remember how bad it was to work before heat treatment, then you have to re-polish from about 400 grit on after they return and that was hellish.

Yeah, a quick peek at the datasheet makes me think that no SiOX-based abrasive would stand a chance against that stuff. That's a pretty ballsy choice for a teenager with a home-made grinder :-).

[Brian Holcombe]

Haha Indeed, I had to buy those blue ceramic belts to cut the stuff. I would grind to about 220 grit, then work the remainder by hand to work out the dips and so forth. My father gave me a pretty good stack of SiC sandpaper of various grades and I remember wearing out a good portion of it on that blade. I had made a wooden backer and used it to put apply pressure on the blade as I sanded.

It should come as no surprise that at this point I generally avoid alloy steels....and sandpaper, haha.

If I were so inclined to do it again (I have no interest really) I would probably do as the professional knife makers do and use a sen to scrape the blade, then finish with natural stones....sticking with high carbon steel rather than alloys.

The good thing is that as a pseudo-hatchet BG-42 seems to work fairly well.

[george wilson]

did you heat treat the ATS 34? That has a complicated steel to heat treat.
it requires a series of different heat temps and timing.

I had a bar of it that vanished when I had to move my stuff home from work. I have had great performance from the 52100 ball bearing steel blade I made,and will probably forge some more 1 3/8" balls out into usable strips. If anyone ever tries this,ball bearings MUST be annealed before you weld a bar of steel on for a handle,or the ball will BLOW UP violently from internal stress. The shards are QUITE SHARP!!

WHAT IS A SEN?

[Brian Holcombe]

I didn't do any of the heat treatment, I had participated in a forum (much like this one) and one of the guys was (possibly still is) a knife maker in North Dakota who was setup to heat treat all sorts of exotic alloy steels. He did all the heat treatment for me and I remember him offering some words of caution about various things but forget the specifics.

[Mike Jaureguy]

Just caught up on the thread.. A great, but never-ending(happily) discussion, with much wisdom put forth. Chris, I have and have used the WS3000. I used it to bring back to life a whole bunch of old, junk as well as nice, chisels and planing irons. I find it works well for what it is. Except for the junk chisels/plane irons, I usually finish off with flat granite/glass plate/3M abrasive film of xxx grit(depends....), and a Veritas jig. I use the jig for the same reason I use the WS in the early stages; it keeps a constant bevel angle while I hone. Also, It allows me to reliably hold and fix the much narrower chisels, that the WS can't handle (now that I finally got the Veritas narrow blade attachment!!). Yes I tried those DMT diamond discs on the WS. I was VERY disappointed!! The discs immediately got scratches and grooves in themselves and the tools I was sharpening. Didn't last ONE sharpening, let alone 50. I believe the achilles heel is in the magnetic plate that attracts all those [earlier] bigger steel particles and inadvertently uses them to degrade what the embedded diamond particles are supposed to be doing. Which of course is a great reminder that, no matter WHAT method of sharpening is used, ALWAYS wipe down/clean off the previous grit slurry, before going on to the next finer grits. If I get the chance to drive up to their DMT shop, I'll take these useless discs with me and hope for an explanation.Having said all that, to increase the usefulness of the WS, check out the Stumpy Nubs website. He has some interesting and simple mods for the WS, that really (and inexpensively) increase its usefulness.
A wonderful book on the whole business of sharpening; simple, yet detailed enough for all, is Ron Hock's book, THE PERFECT EDGE. Gets rid of lots of old wive's tales, logical and well illustrated. Two FLAT!!!! surfaces meet at an angle. the flatter and smoother(finer grits) the surfaces, the sharper the edge; up to the point where the steel in question loses its structural strength (the "burr"). Then a few strokes of some type of strop with some polishing stuff (all noted in earlier posts), gets rid of the burr (leaving a jagged edge!!) and smooths (dare I say "dulls" ???) the jaggies, and all is well. Make your method, simple, effective, and quick and easy.

[Christopher Kurdziel]

Why are we bothering to answer this guy? He is not listening to any advice that has been offered or any questions that have been asked. I still do not know whether he freehands, uses a guide, or expects a machine to do all the work for him! Christopher, unless you actually respond to questions, you will just get more and more useless answers - useless only because you are not interested in what is offered. Many of these suggestions come from experienced users, however whether they are helpful is anyone's guess.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Sorry, I do not check this forum every day. I have read all of the replies and I have been taking advice from the forum anyways. Jim Koepke said he used the Veritas MKII system which lead me to the Work Sharp. I researched the Work Sharp and actually tried one and ordered one with the wide blade attachment because I was impressed.

I threw out the idea of the oil stones because I did not know much about them and it was a mistake to order them in the first place. I determined I would be spending more money on the oil stones when my water stones work perfectly fine for getting an edge. My problem is removing material quickly.

The way I currently sharpen is I start with the backs on the coarse diamond plate and proceed all they way through 1000 4000 and 8000 waterstones. Then I use a Veritas mkii honing guide and do the bevel starting on the coarse diamond plate all the way up to the 8000 stone. After that I just do the back again on the 8000 stone. To resharpen I just use the guide and do the bevels on the 4000 and 8000 stone and remove the burr on the back with the 8000 stone. I am getting a great edge my problem is just removing material quickly. I had a faulty honing guide that was sharpening blades out of square and it was taking way to long on the diamond plate.

Currently I am just trying to figure out how I want to sharpen now with the Work Sharp. I was considering keeping my 4000 and 8000 stone to finish the edge after using the Work Sharp, but it would be nice to be able to do everything on the Work Sharp and get an edge just as sharp as it would be off my 8000 stone.

I use my planes for smoothing, joinery, and flattening boards. Chisels are used for joinery.

[Patrick Chase]

Why are we bothering to answer this guy? He is not listening to any advice that has been offered or any questions that have been asked. I still do not know whether he freehands, uses a guide, or expects a machine to do all the work for him! Christopher, unless you actually respond to questions, you will just get more and more useless answers - useless only because you are not interested in what is offered. Many of these suggestions come from experienced users, however whether they are helpful is anyone's guess.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek, I think this post is pretty inappropriate.

He asked for advice, you and many other people volunteered it, and he said "thank you" (more than once). That's the end of the transaction, full stop. The fact that we offered advice doesn't oblige him to answer our questions or to do what you, I, or anybody else told him to, and to assume otherwise frankly seems a bit disturbing.

That's particularly true with something as subjectively-driven as sharpening.

For the record, I actually like your approach a lot even if I don't use it due to my own peculiar obsessions. I also think that your articles on the topic are great, and encourage the OP to read them if he hasn't already.

[Derek Cohen]

Thank you Christopher. That helps to provide you with some advice.

Since you are using a honing guide, I would only use a coarse grit on the WorkSharp. Treat the WorkSharp as a grinder and not as a sharpener. The reason is that I very much doubt that it can do better than the waterstones you have.

The fastest edge (which you requested) will come from a micro secondary bevel (the tiniest bevel created at a higher angle), and the smaller the bevel, the quicker you will hone. There is no point in taking the WS past a coarse setting if you use a guide to create a secondary bevel as the only surface that matters is on the secondary bevel. It is wasted effort on the primary bevel. Consequently, there is no point in using different grits on the WS to hone the full bevel face. If you did try to do so, you will find that this takes longer (having to switch plates and work a larger area) than a micro secondary bevel on a honing guide (where you move the guide to another stone).

Many years ago I developed a tool rest for a belt sander to sharpen plane and chisel blades. I had belts up to 6000 grit and followed with a motorised strop using green compound. This could create a frightening edge. It was really impressive. I built a second, even better machine after the first one developed an electrical fault. The original version actually appeared in FWW magazine. I gave up on it as a sharoener after a year because it was too inefficient in use. Changing belts became a chore. Eventually I used it only as a grinder, using a 120 grit belt for the primary bevel, and then to a guide on a waterstone for a secondary bevel. (I stopped using the belt sander about a decade ago, when I moved to a hollow grind and freehanding).

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Patrick Chase]

Sorry, I do not check this forum every day. I have read all of the replies and I have been taking advice from the forum anyways. Jim Koepke said he used the Veritas MKII system which lead me to the Work Sharp. I researched the Work Sharp and actually tried one and ordered one with the wide blade attachment because I was impressed.

I threw out the idea of the oil stones because I did not know much about them and it was a mistake to order them in the first place. I determined I would be spending more money on the oil stones when my water stones work perfectly fine for getting an edge. My problem is removing material quickly.

The way I currently sharpen is I start with the backs on the coarse diamond plate and proceed all they way through 1000 4000 and 8000 waterstones. Then I use a Veritas mkii honing guide and do the bevel starting on the coarse diamond plate all the way up to the 8000 stone. After that I just do the back again on the 8000 stone. To resharpen I just use the guide and do the bevels on the 4000 and 8000 stone and remove the burr on the back with the 8000 stone. I am getting a great edge my problem is just removing material quickly. I had a faulty honing guide that was sharpening blades out of square and it was taking way to long on the diamond plate.

Currently I am just trying to figure out how I want to sharpen now with the Work Sharp. I was considering keeping my 4000 and 8000 stone to finish the edge after using the Work Sharp, but it would be nice to be able to do everything on the Work Sharp and get an edge just as sharp as it would be off my 8000 stone.

I use my planes for smoothing, joinery, and flattening boards. Chisels are used for joinery.

Depending on the maker a #8000 waterstone corresponds to a mean particle size between ~1.2 um (Sigma, Imanishi) and ~1.8 um (Shapton, though Norton may be higher). You can get 8" PSA disc media in that grit range, for example 3M makes diamond (668X, you can find suppliers that sell individual discs instead of 25-disc inners if you look hard enough) and aluminum-oxide (265X, same remark) lapping films that should work on your WorkSharp. I have the Veritas disc sharpener and have experimented with fine lapping films on that.

With that said, waterstones (and lapping compounds for that matter) have *much* better economics in the super-fine grits. One way to look at it is that a 1" thick waterstone with 1.2 um particles has ~20000 "layers" of abrasive, so in terms of abrasive life it's equivalent to an insanely large surface area of lapping film. The papers/films do better at coarse grits, so I think Derek is spot on in his advice to treat the WorkSharp as a grinder.

[Stewie Simpson]

Talk about a time wasting process.

https://vimeo.com/132747403